orders." The need for these repeated orders illustrates the decline of the old system; but they were not wholly without effect. Good Readings were sometimes given. D'Ewes, in his autobiography, notes that Feb. 27th, 1626 "Mr. Thomas Mellett, the Queen's Solicitor, began his Lent Reading in our Middle Temple, and performed it very well.''25 The Inns backed up the orders of the judges by detailed regulations, and the judges rebuked not only readers who had failed to read, or had read too shortly," but also the benchers, if they discovered that their orders had been disobeyed."

D'Ewes' summary of his performances while student and a barrister show that the system was still alive." "I had, during my continuance in that Society which was in all but five years at the uttermost, twice mooted myself in law French, before I was called to the bar, and several times after I was made an utter barrister in our open hall; thrice also, before I was of the bar, I argued the readers' cases at the Inns of Chancery publicly, and six times after. And then also, being an utter barrister, I had twice argued our Middle Temple readers' case at the cupboard and sat

nine times in our Temple Hall at the bench, and argued such cases in English as had been before argued by young gentlemen or utter barristers themselves in law

24 Dugdale, op. cit. 320-21; Black Books, ii. 454.
25 Op. cit. i. 295.

28 Black Books, ii. 54, 94, 165-7 - a comprehensive set of rules for moots and exercises published in 1614, 262; Pension Book, 4, 16-17, 39. 243.

27 A list of delinquents from Gray's Inn were directed to be sequestered from the Bench and from commons by the judges in 1605, Pension Book, 169, 170.

28 In 1606 the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn and of the other Inns had been summoned by the judges to answer for their disobedience to their orders; they were told, that offence was taken in yt ye Readers wch were in ye Lent last before past in every ye same inns of Court, did not contynew theire Readinges soe longe tyme as they should have done; and yt for ye same defaltes as also for faile of attendance and was forced

assistaunce to ye Reader of ye inner Temple (who to give over his Readinge at ye beginninge of ye 3 weeks for want of company both at Bench and Barr) the Judges thought fitt yt ye Governors in ye same Houses of Court should proceed to censure and course of reformacion accordinge to theire private Orders therein," Black Books, ii. 97, 98.

29 Op. cit. i. 304-5.

French bareheaded. I brought in also many law cases after dinner, and argued them in English; upon which I bestowed not much less study than upon the cases or moot points upon which I sat, as many of them still remaining by me in written copies do sufficient witness." But we can also see from this autobiography that the old lectures, moots and exercises were not now the only methods by which the student acquired his knowledge. D'Ewes tells us how he read Littleton's Tenures-"the very key as it were of the common law,'' and parts of Coke's reports, and Keilway's reports. He tells us how he made reports in the Star Chamber and the Common pleas," and how he studied records at the Tower. At first he studied these records "only to find out the matter in law contained in them," and then for the light which they threw upon English history. So interesting did he find this study that it usurped the place of the common law, and led to the production of his book on the Elizabethan Parliaments by which he is chiefly remembered.**

31

But for the constitutional disturbances which led up to the outbreak of the Great Rebellion, the Privy

20 Op. cit. i. 181-" Friday morning, April 13 (1621), I added an end to my reading of Sir Thomas Littleton's French Tenures, being the very key, as it were, of our common law, and accounted the most absolute work that was ever written touching it."

1 Ibid. 216-April, 1622, he read Co. Rep. Pts. 1 and 2, omitting the pleadings; ibid. 224—Feb., 1623, he finished Co. Rep. Pt. 5, and began Keilway's reports, "which I read afterwards with more satisfaction and delight than I had done formerly any other piece of our common law." Ibid. 231-April, 1823, he read Co. Rep. 6.

33 Op. cit. i. 220, 243, 257, 300.

"On Thursday, the 4th day of September, in the afternoon I first began studying records at the Tower of London . . From this day forward, I never wholly gave over the study of records; but spent many day and months about it, to my great content and satisfaction; and at last grew so perfect in it, that when I had sent for a copy or transcript of a record, I could without the view of the original, discover many errors which had slipped from the pen of the clerk. I at first read records only to find out the matter of law contained in them, but afterwards perceiving other excellencies might be observed from them, both historical and national, I always continued the study of them after I had left the Middle Temple and given over the study of the common law itself. I especially searched the records of the Exchequer: intending to restore to Great Britain its true history-the exactest that ever was penned of any nation in the Christian world," op. cit. i. 235-6.

"See ibid. i. 409-10 for his account of the transscription of the Journals of the House of Lords and Commons.

Council, the judges, and the Inns might have succeeded in adapting the old system to the new conditions. If they could have done this the Inns would have continued to be a legal university, and the public teaching of English law would have had a continuous history. This was not to be.

(ii) The Commonwealth period.

During the Great Rebellion the old system of legal education collapsed. Nothing had been done before the outbreak of the civil war to adapt the old system to the new conditions; and when war broke out it was obviously quite impossible to undertake an adjustment which would have needed tactful and patient consideration on the part of judges, benchers, barristers, and students, and equally tactful exercise of authority on the part of the Privy Council.

35

The records of the Inns show that attempts were made to restore the old order. Thus in 1646, it appears that at Gray's Inn the students were complaining that they had no opportunity of performing their exercises, and so qualifying for call. The Bench, therefore, ordered that the ensuing vacation should be kept as in the old days; and in 1647, the students were allowed to keep their exercises by performing only one moot a day. In 1651 Lincoln's Inn ordered the due performance of the customary exercises both in term and vacation.3 But it appears from a further order in 1655 that the order of 1651 had been entirely neglected -and more neglected at Lincoln's Inn than at the other Inns. So bad, in fact, was the state of affairs at that Inn that "the Judges in the Publique Courts att Westminster" took notice of the neglect of exercises in that House. But, in spite of the recommendations of

37

38

39

95 Pension Book, 360.

30 Ibid. 365.

"Black Books, ii. 391; cp. Pension Book, 413-4-an order of 1655. Black Books, 405-“the Masters of the Bench, beinge unwillinge to be behind other inns of Court in a thinge tendinge to the furtherance of students in the laws, doe order that the usuall exercises of moots and bolts be continued."

So Ibid. 410-"Whereas the Judges in the Publique Courts att Westminster have taken notice of the neglect of exercise in this House, that

Parliament," and the efforts of Judges and Benchers, the old system of legal education could not be revived. The Readers refused to read."1 41 The Orders issued were neglected by benchers, barristers, and students.12 It was growing more and more antiquated, and no attempt was made to reform it intelligently. As we shall now see not even the Restoration of the old order in Church and State could revive it.

therefore it is ordered that exercise be performed accordinge to the antient orders of this House. . . And that none be hereafter called to the Barr till they have done theire compleate exercise."

40 "In 1657 Parliament recommended Cromwell and the Council to make the judges revive readings and exercises in the inns of Court, Burton, Diary, June 26, 1657-cited Robinson, Anticipations under the Commonwealth of changes in the law, Essays A. A. L. H. i. 471.

"Pension Book XLIV-XLV; Black Books, ii. XXVII.

"During these eleven years (1642-1660) a recommendation of the Council of State and 17 minutes of the Bench endeavour to revive education but the result is best put in words of the Minute of 1659, that the holding up of the Commons in Vacation, intended by the Bench for reviving exercises in the vacations, which have been nevertheless neglected, is a charge, beside the fruitlessnesse thereof, too great for the Revenue of the House."" Black Books, ii. XXVII.

(To be concluded in June issue.)

THE STUDY OF THE LAW

By W. W. WILLOUGHBY.*

The present paper has for its purpose a statement, in general terms, of the different points of view from which law may be studied in order to determine its nature and purposes.

PRACTICAL JURISPRUDENCE.

It is possible to view the laws of a given country as an aggregate of detached rules, as a sum of particular definitions and separate statutory and judicial declarations, a knowledge of which may be obtained by a mere exercise of the memory. Such a memorized knowledge of legal definitions and precepts is, unfortunately, deemed adequate, in not a few of our States, for admission to the bar. In fact, however, a knowledge of these definitions and substantive legal declarations is without any real meaning to anyone until the reasoning by which they have been supported has been understood, until the principles themselves have been brought into relation to one another, and the logical ligaments which unite them determined, and thus a systematic whole created.

Such a systematized knowledge of the law as this may properly receive the title Practical Jurisprudence. Its aim, while higher than that of a mere memorized knowledge of the substantive precepts of the law, does not, however, advance beyond a practical working knowledge of the law. There is not necessarily involved an effort to penetrate beneath the rules of the law in order to discover the abstract concepts and principles which are implicit in the propositions which they declare.

* Reprinted by permission from the Virginia Law Review with compliments to the Author.